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JP gets cameo in music video

Image Courtesy McAlister Drive
A couple reunites in a scene shot in JP’s Monumnet Square for the band McAlister Drive’s music video for the song “Drowning.”

Jamaica Plain is for lovers.

At least, it is in a new music video by the indie rock band McAlister Drive that shows a couple reuniting in JP’s Monument Square.

The video for the song “Drowning” debuted last week as part of the Somerville band’s performance at the CollegeFest event in the Back Bay’s Hynes Convention Center.

The video begins with scenes of couples breaking up. The happy ending comes when a man and woman reconcile while sitting on the granite wall surrounding the Soldier’s Monument. The black-and-white footage turns to full color during the scene.

The video offers an unusual but attractive view of Monument Square. Most photos of the square are taken from South Street to show the monument and the First Church in Jamaica Plain Unitarian Universalist. But the video is shot from Centre Street. It barely shows the monument, instead highlighting the green space around it, with Curtis Hall appearing prominently in the background.

The Gazette encountered the band’s frontman, Christoph Krey, and the crew from McElroy Films shooting the JP footage last March.

Most of the video was shot elsewhere. Krey told the Gazette this week that the filmmakers chose Monument Square for the key scene as a “perfect in-between” from a city look and a suburban look.

“We did know about the location before [and] we tried to encompass areas that the band is familiar with and have a high artist population,” Krey said. “JP and Somerville captured both quite well.”